Review: Vice (2018)

* 1/2
Director: Adam McKay
Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams

132 minutes is a lot of time to spend saying absolutely nothing. While Vice may mock the post-Nixon Republican party for believing in nothing but the power of power itself, the film is just as intellectually, emotionally, and morally empty. Dick Cheney, pulling the strings of the Bush II administration, stripped away many of the checks and balances that are meant to keep American democracy from slipping into tyranny, destabilized the middle east by invading a country knowing that the reasons for invasion were specious, and just generally left the world in a worse place than he found it when he became Vice President. These are things that we already know, though I suppose it may be worth the reminder given the recent trend towards taking a softer view of the Bush II years in light of the mess that's now in power. Vice says nothing new, nothing insightful, and actually laughs at the idea that there is an insight to be had. "What do we believe in?" a young Cheney (Christian Bale) asks his mentor, Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell), who can only burst out laughing in response. But nobody believes in nothing. Even the Joker believed in chaos, which is the absolute freedom of the individual to do as he or she pleases. A film that is content to argue that its protagonist believes in nothing is a film without a narrative rudder. It is sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Review: Nocturnal Animals (2016)

* *
Director: Tom Ford
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon

I was a great admirer of Tom Ford's debut film, A Single Man, which was not only incredibly stylish but also managed to be a moving portrait of a man struggling to grieve a loss that the mores of the time keep him from openly acknowledging. I'm considerably less keen on Nocturnal Animals, which is also stylish and even, in moments, expertly made, but overall reeks of fraud. Nocturnal Animals is a movie that doesn't actually seem to have anything to say, save for the most superficial and banal things possible, but revels in empty symbols that give the appearance of profundity. It's unfortunate, because the film actually contains some pretty incredible performances (including that of Michael Shannon, which received an Oscar nomination), but even the fine work of the actors can't disguise how vapid an enterprise this is.

Review: Arrival (2016)

* * * 1/2
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner

"We need to talk to each other." At a time when society seems more divided than ever, when not only do the left hand and the right hand not seem to know what each other is doing, but can't even seem to fathom that they belong to the same body, this may be the most relevant line of film dialogue in 2016. A great human drama couched in a science fiction thriller, Arrival is both a fantastic entertainment and the kind of introspective piece of work that keeps you thinking about it for days afterwards. To my mind this is the best of director Denis Villeneuve's English-language films, the closest thing he's made to a masterpiece since his trio of great French-language films Maelstrom, Polytechnique, and Incendies. Anchored by a wonderful performance by Amy Adams, Arrival is one of the season's must-see films.

Review: Big Eyes (2014)

* * 1/2
Director: Tim Burton
Starring: Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz

Big Eyes, which is perhaps the least "Tim Burton-y" movie Burton has ever made (though a strong argument could be made for the whimsy-less Planet of the Apes remake), starts so strong that I found myself baffled by the rather lackluster reception it received when it was released theatrically in December. The first act of the film is so strong that it genuinely felt like the film was unfairly sold short, if not exactly "maligned," perhaps as a result of being released during the part of the year when everything is expected to be a masterpiece; and then the rest of the film happened, and suddenly I understood. It's not that Big Eyes is a bad movie - it's perfectly fine - it's just that it lays down the foundation to actually do something with its subject and then seems to lose its nerve and falls back on genre tropes and dashes of wackiness before puttering to its conclusion.

Review: Her (2013)

* * * 1/2
Director: Spike Jonze
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams

Of all the questions that Spike Jonze's Her asks, the most pressing is, what does it mean to be human? It takes more than a body, surely, yet while a body may not define a person's humanity, it would seem to be an essential part of it, giving people the ability to physically connect and physically experience the world. But, as experience and connection increasingly become more virtual than physical, but no less real, our definitions may have to change. In Her the meaning of what it is to be human is expanded, while at the same time the limitations of human beings is acknowledged. Technology advances at an increasingly fast rate, and though humans may consider the attainment of "consciousness" as the end point of technological advancement, it may actually only be the beginning. Her is a charming film with a great deal on its mind, exploring this theme and others, deftly mixing science fiction and romance, comedy and drama, and exploring intellectual themes without sacrificing heart or soul.

Review: American Hustle (2013)

* * *
Director: David O. Russell
Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence

I like David O. Russell. I don't think he's made a bad film (even the much maligned I Heart Huckabees has a place in my heart), but I think he's only made one truly great film (Three Kings). The rest fall on a spectrum from "good" to "really good" with American Hustle falling smack dab into the middle of "good" - mostly entertaining and fun, but ultimately all surface. To be honest, in a year with so many great films to its credit, I'm sort of baffled that this one could be anyone's pick for the year's "best." It's a fine film with many fine actors turning in fine performances, but in the end it's a trifle with only small pockets of greatness nestled within it.

Review: Man of Steel (2013)

* * *
Director: Zack Snyder
Starring: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe

I don't have strong feelings about Superman one way or another, so in certain respects I'm probably the ideal audience for Man of Steel. I'm not going to get hung up on whether director Zack Snyder and writer David S. Goyer chose the "right" narrative elements from the comic to adapt to their film, and I'm not going to lose my mind over the climax (though I do think it's a shortsighted decision in terms of maintaining a franchise). I'm also not going to fixate on the high toll of destruction resulting from the fights between Superman and General Zod. I am, however, going to point out what to me is the single most objectionable thing about Man of Steel, which is the aggressive product placement. I'm not sure how much money Nikon, IHop, and Sears pumped into this production, but they were certainly rewarded with some pretty prominent signage. At this rate, it wouldn't surprise me if the forthcoming sequel is titled Pepsi Presents Superman vs Batman.

Review: The Master (2012)

* * * Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams

The Master, Paul Thomas Anderson's latest film, is an ambitious, enigmatic, beautifully photographed, and sometimes brilliant piece of work. I feel like I should have liked it more, but as I left the theater my feelings were more akin to a shrug. Individual scenes in The Master are amazing but as a whole I found the film rather unaffecting. It is by no measure a bad movie. It's a movie I admire in many ways, but one which ultimately left me unmoved.

Review: Trouble with the Curve (2012)

* * *Director: Robert Lorenz
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams, Justin Timberlake

When a film is described as a "feel good movie," that's usually shorthand for a blandly entertaining piece of work that goes so far out of its way to be inoffensive and unchallenging that it is consumed and then instantly forgotten. This isn't necessarily fair, which is why I'm loath to use the term to describe Trouble with the Curve, even though I can't think of a term that's more appropriate. The film, the debut feature of Clint Eastwood's long time Assistant Director Robert Lorenz, is certainly far from a masterpiece, but it's the kind of solidly crafted, smoothly moving film that doesn't often get its due these days. It may not aim very high, but it hits every target it aims for, and does so in a charming and effective way.

Friday's Top 5... Amy Adams Performances

#5: Drop Dead Gorgeous
Her film debut and a performance which confirms that she should do more straight up comedies. Her dimwitted, hyper sexual pagent contestant is a highlight and gets some of the film's best lines ("They're never gonna let you perform naked... I asked.").

Review: The Fighter (2010)

* * *
Director: David O. Russell
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo

The Fighter is David O. Russell's most conventional film and the only feature length film he's directed that he didn't also have a hand in writing, which is perhaps why it doesn't quite have the passion of his previous efforts. I mean, sure, it gets the adrenaline pumping during its finale, but overall it's something of a detached effort. Luckily it's got four solid performances pushing it forward.

The Fighter tells the story of "Irish" Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), a welterweight boxer struggling to make his mark. As the story opens, however, the focus is on Ward's half-brother Dicky Ecklund (Christian Bale), a former boxer who is now the subject of a documentary about crack addiction. Dicky - "the pride of Lowell" thanks to having knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard once upon a time - has convinced himself that the film crew is detailing his comeback rather than his continuing descent, and he's more or less enabled by everyone in his life, particularly his mother, Alice (Melissa Leo). Since Dicky acts as his brother's trainer, his drug problem has some pretty major negative effects on Micky's career and after an altercation with police which results in one of Micky's hands being broken, Micky decides that he can no longer afford to maintain the professional side of their relationship.

Alice, who is fiercely supportive of Dicky, pressures Micky not to turn his back on his brother and, perhaps even more importantly, not to turn his back on her by cutting her lose as his manager. However, several other people in Micky's life - including his father (Jack McGee), his other trainer Mickey O'Keefe (played by the real O'Keefe), and his girlfriend Charlene (Amy Adams) - make him see the necessity of cutting Alice and Dicky, and the insanity that seems to follow in their wake, out of his career. This starts a veritable war over Micky, who understands that his mother and brother bring too much drama but ultimately still feels a great deal of loyalty to them. He's given an ultimatum but, in the end, gets to have his cake and eat it too as his mother and brother end up in his corner alongside his girlfriend, father and trainer.

The four principal actors are all very good and though I've read reviews in which Bale and Leo's performances are described as bordering on "cartoony," I have to disagree with that assessment. Just because a role seems showy, doesn't mean that there aren't people like that who exist in the real world. Personally, Bale's portrayal of Dicky reminded me a lot of a guy I know casually through my real job, so the performance rang with authenticity to me. Likewise, I have no doubt that Leo's portrayal of Alice could easily remind a viewer of someone they've known. Their characters have very forceful personalities, huge presences, but the performances are skilled and I don't think that either is overly-mannered or scenery chewing.

Bale and Leo have the most colorful roles (although the actresses playing Micky and Dicky's army of sisters are pretty colorful themselves), but the quieter performances from Wahlberg and Adams give the film its emotional resonance. Part of the problem that I had with The Fighter is that it kind of gives short shrift to Micky and, by extension, to Wahlberg. Micky is the story's official subject but the film consistently seems more interested in his brother, which is perhaps why one of the "big" moments - when Micky reveals his frustrations about living in Dicky's shadow, telling his mother, "I'm your son, too" - falls a bit flat. I mean, Micky is absolutely right but it seems like an afterthought given that the film itself is fascinated by Dicky at Micky's expense.

In the end, while I really liked the four performances of The Fighter, I found the film itself too unfocused and some of the conflicts (particularly that between Charlene and Micky's family) resolved a bit too tidily. It's a good movie, but it falls far short of greatness.

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Review: Julie & Julia (2009)

* * *
Director: Nora Ephron
Starring: Meryl Streep, Amy Adams

Coming a little late to this particular party, but better late than never. Judging from other people’s reactions to this film, I liked it a little more than most, perhaps because I’ve read the book (half of it, at any rate) and am therefore familiar with how irritating Julie Powell comes across in print. Seriously y’all, the Julie Powell character as played by Amy Adams is a breath of fresh air in comparison. It’s not enough to make the film more than a middling entertainment, but it’s something, right?

Julie and Julia is based on two true stories, only one of which most people would be remotely interested in hearing. In the present day we have Julie Powell (Adams), secretary turned blogger turned published writer, and in the not so distant past we have Julia Child (Meryl Streep, looking like she’s having an absolute blast) in the years before she becomes the famous Julia Child. Julie is in the midst of what I suppose you could call a mid-mid life crisis, approaching 30 and deeply dissatisfied with her professional life. She meets friends (not real friends, really, and we never see any of them again after this one scene) for lunch and finds herself reduced as they ask her about her job with barely concealed pity and then move on to discuss their own important jobs and big promotions. Feeling increasingly left behind, Julie decides to try to make some room for herself in the zeitgeist by starting a blog (“I have thoughts!” she declares as she launches into her plan) which will chart her progress through Julia Child’s cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Meanwhile, in France several decades earlier, Julia finds her calling as a chef after first giving hat making and bridge a try. All she’s really looking for is a hobby to occupy her time while her husband, Paul (Stanley Tucci) is at work, but when she secures a place at La Cordon Blue school, she falls in love with her new hobby. Teaming up with Simone Beck (Linda Emond) and Louisette Bertholle (Helen Carey), she sets out to write a cook book for American women about French cuisine. The trio (well, mostly Julia and Simone) spend years working on their book, enduring numerous rejections while certain that their creation is a winner. The parallels drawn between Julia’s struggle with her cook book and Julie’s struggle gaining recognition from her blog are numerous, which helps in terms of flow but does grow a bit tiresome as the film approaches its end. The two halves of the story, one rather banal, the other brimming with life, cannot be made equal no matter how many times the film underscores Julie's scenes with a "see, she's just like Julia!" attitude.

Adams is an actress I've liked ever since her scene stealing turn in Drop Dead Gorgeous ("They won't let you perform naked. I asked.") and I think she does a decent job with what she has to work with. The film never seems very interested in developing Julie as a character, which of course begs the questions of why they included the character at all. Why not just make a movie about Julia Child starring Meryl Streep if that's what you really wanted to do? I don't object to Julie as a character, though I never felt invested in her, but I do object to the film's half-hearted treatment of that segment of the story.

As for the Julia half, it's pretty wonderful and it's fairly obvious that this is the half that writer/director Nora Ephron was really passionate about. The scenes between Julia and Paul are sweet, particularly the one in which they learn that Julia's sister (played all too briefly by the always fantastic Jane Lynch) is pregnant. When Julia breaks down in tears, saying, "I'm so happy," you can really get a sense of the variety of emotions she feels at that moment, from sadness and frustration at her own childlessness, jealousy, and of course genuine happiness for her sister. It's a great moment from both Streep and Tucci, whose performances perfectly complement each other throughout the film. In the end, Julie & Julia may be wildly uneven, but the Julia half makes it worth seeing as a whole.

Review: Sunshine Cleaning (2009)

* *
Director: Christine Jeffs
Starring: Amy Adams, Emily Blunt

Watching Sunshine Cleaning I couldn't help but feel like I was seeing a good movie that had been taken to the editing room and hacked away at until it was merely competent. Anything that can be safely filed away under the heading "routine" remains and anything even remotely different or interesting has been cut down to the point of barely qualifying as subplots. It's a shame, too, because the film is carried by two of the more skilled and likeable young actresses working today and this ends up feeling like a waste of their talents and time.

Amy Adams and Emily Blunt star as Rose and Nora, two sisters still struggling to deal with the pain of their mother's suicide when they were children. Rose is a single mother with a young son and has been carrying on an affair with her high school boyfriend, Mac (Steve Zahn), and Nora is generally surly and hard to get along with and lives with their father. The father is played by Alan Arkin and is the kind of character whose heart is always in the right place but who often does more harm than good, the type of role that is in danger of becoming known as "the Alan Arkin role in movies with Sunshine in the title." Rose has been working as a maid and seizes the chance to make better money by moving into a more specialized cleaning service dealing with the aftermath of crime scenes. She talks Nora into joining her in the venture and, thus, the eponymous Sunshine Cleaning is born.

Much of the plot you can probably guess. One sister is responsible and has always carried the burden of taking care of the other, the other is a bit wild, a little shiftless, and kind of resents being "taken care of" even though she continuously shows that she's not particularly responsible. The child is young and precocious. The father is old and precocious. The married boyfriend is never going to leave his wife, who knows about the affair and engages in the tried and truce blame-the-other-woman-but-let- the-husband-off-without-so-much-as-a-scolding dance. The sisters have difficulty working together at first, and then find their groove, and then everything falls apart because the responsible one makes the mistake of relying on the less responsible one. Lather, rinse, repeat.

There are two interesting developments that end up being left, well, underdevelopped. During one of their first jobs, Nora finds photos of the deceased's daughter and rather than throwing them out, decides to track her down and return them to her. When she catches up with Lynn (Mary Lynn Rajskub), Nora can't think of how to explain the situation and instead tries to develop a friendship with her, which Lynn misinterprets as romantic interest and, of course, ends badly. The other plot involves Winston, the owner of the store where Sunshine Cleaning gets its supplies. Played by Clifton Collins Jr., he is far and away the most interesting character in the film and there are suggestions that he and Rose may get involved, but nothing really comes of it. In fact, very little comes of anything in this movie and the ending feels like something thrown together rather than something that comes organically out of the story.

Adams and Blunt do what they can with their characters, but the film allows them very little room for growth. The story feels more like a series of individual moments strung together rather than, you know, a "story" - which can work in some films, but not in this one. The actors work hard to anchor the narrative but it seems like a wasted effort because the film ends up being so aimless, puttering itself out rather than driving towards its conclusion. It ends the way that it does not because it needs to end there but because it needs to end somewhere and there is as good a place as any.

Review: Doubt (2008)

* * * 1/2
Director: John Patrick Shanley
Starring: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Viola Davis

John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt is a morality play about the nature and power of suspicion. It’s an effectively ambiguous bit of storytelling but, from a technical perspective, the film is ultimately rather uneven. The performances, however, are uniformly engrossing and the film’s take on gender politics is utterly fascinating.

It's 1964 and at St. Nicholas school Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) rules with an iron fist, striking fear into the hearts of the students and the other nuns alike, particularly young Sister James (Amy Adams). When Donald Miller (Joseph Foster) – one of her students and the only African-American student at the school – is called from her class for a private conference with Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and returns behaving strangely and with the faint smell of alcohol on his breath, Sister James’ suspicions are aroused and she feels compelled to share them with Sister Aloysius.

What follows is a battle of wills between Flynn and Aloysius which is as much about Donald Miller as it is their differing views on the church – Flynn is progressive, Aloysius staunchly conservative – and a general battle of the sexes. While Sister James begins to change her mind regarding whether she thinks anything untoward actually did take place, Aloysius charges forward in her crusade, determined to force Flynn out one way or another, even attempting to rally Donald’s mother (Viola Davis in a small but unforgettable performance) to the cause. The question of Flynn’s guilt or innocence, however, is not the central concern of the story; it’s what Aloysius is willing to sacrifice in her relentless pursuit.

The relationship between Flynn and Aloysius – indeed, between men and women in the story – is interesting. As principal, Aloysius is a figure of authority, but as a woman within the Catholic hierarchy, she also has little to no power in the grand scheme of things. When Flynn comes to her office for a meeting, he takes her seat behind her desk and waits to be served tea by her and Sister James. He must be deferred to just as, if Aloysius wishes to do anything about her suspicions, she must defer to the judgement of the bishop and if she wants to know about Flynn’s experiences in previous parishes, she’s expected to speak to the priest there rather than a nun. Flynn is infuriated by the suggestion of impropriety not just because it’s an ugly thing to be accused of but because, as far as he’s concerned, Aloysius has no right to question him because there are no circumstances under which he’s answerable to her. He makes her out to be the villain for even daring to question him and in her solo crusade the film seems to take his side, though I disagree. When it comes to the suggestion that a child might be being abused, I think it’s fair to err on the side of caution and investigate. Aloysius asks him to explain two facts which he confirms as true: he had a private conference with the boy in the rectory and the boy had consumed some alcohol. Her questions are relevant and it would irresponsible not to ask them regardless of Flynn’s view of their power relationship.

Flynn is a man of contradictions. He believes that the church needs to be more open, that its members need to become like family to the parishioners because, as he sees it, there is no difference between them and the people. This concept of sameness, that no one is elevated above another by virtue of being a member of the church, does not extend to his relationships with the nuns. He and Aloysius are not the same; he is above her because he’s a priest and she’s a nun. “You have no right to act on your own,” he tells her upon learning that she’s spoken to a nun at his previous parish. “You have taken vows, obedience being one! You answer to us!” Not “God” but “us,” meaning the priests. Furthermore, while he sets himself apart by being a progressive Catholic, he nonetheless falls back on traditional ideas about the balance of power between the genders in his efforts to put Aloysius in her place. He doesn’t know how to deal with an assertive woman like Aloysius; he prefers women of the more meek and submissive variety like Sister James who, though she brings the initial questions to light also eagerly accepts his explanation as the gospel and is willing to drop the matter immediately.

The performances are all good but the direction by Shanley is lacking. There’s always an issue when a play makes the transition to the screen because what seems alive on the stage can seem static and limp on the screen. In his efforts to keep the film moving the way that a film should, Shanley makes some strange choices and is a little too liberal with heavy handed symbolism and because of this the performances aren’t really allowed to just be performances, they’re also being relied upon to buoy up the story, which is a heavy burden.

Review: Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day (2008)

* * *
Director: Bharat Nalluri
Starring: Frances McDormand, Amy Adams

The success of Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day rests largely on the ability of the actors to raise the material above its base level. While the dialogue is clever, the pacing quick, and the film overall quite charming, it is also in many respects a shallow exercise in storytelling. Save for a few key moments, the film is all surface and no depth.

Frances McDormand stars as Miss Pettigrew, a governess who can’t manage to hold a job and doesn’t have a penny to her name. On impulse, she shows up at the home of Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams), whom she believes to be in need of a governess, though in actuality she’s seeking a social secretary. Delysia is an actress who spends most of her time inhabiting a dizzy, Marilyn Monroe-esque persona and juggling three romantic attachments: Phil (Tom Payne), a producer, Nick (Mark Strong), her official boyfriend, and Michael (Lee Pace), the man that she actually loves. Over the course of one chaotic day when Delysia’s future will be decided (she’ll either go to New York with Michael, star in Phil’s play, or continue her toxic relationship with Nick), Miss Pettigrew proves to be indispensible, a sort of savant when it comes to managing Delysia's romantic entanglements.

There are a few significant flaws in the film, the most glaring of which is one of the two central conflicts. Delysia’s friend, Edythe (Shirley Henderson), knows the truth about Miss Pettigrew, having seen her standing in line at a soup kitchen, and threatens to reveal this fact to Delysia unless Miss Pettigrew works her relationship magic on Edythe’s on-again, off-again fiancée, Joe (Ciaran Hinds). There’s not really any good reason why Miss Pettigrew should see this as a threat when, for one thing, Delysia knows what it is to put on an act and wouldn’t be likely to fault her for it, and for another is already aware that Miss Pettigrew came to her penniless. This “conflict” is meaningless and, to make matters worse, Edythe, the supposedly savvy social player, just gives her game away without much prompting.

Another problem is that the film doesn’t seem to know that Miss Pettigrew is its most interesting character and constantly drifts away from her, treating her as secondary. The story takes place just before the outbreak of World War II and there is a moment when a party is interrupted by half a dozen bombers flying overhead. As the other guests gape at and cheer on the bombers, Miss Pettigrew turns to Joe and says quietly, “They don’t remember the last war.” More is expressed about the character with this one line – and the way it’s played by McDormand – than is expressed about most of the other characters during the course of the whole film. It’s quiet moments like this one, and a couple of scenes between McDormand and Adams in which they’re allowed to reveal hidden sides of their characters, that elevate the movie from being glossy but meaningless.

I suppose that what it ultimately comes down to is a problem of tone and genre. Despite its comedic leanings, the film doesn't have the confidence to be an out and out screwball comedy, and despite its quieter moments it doesn't have the gravitas to be a serious drama, and so remains hovering between the two. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day is a very beautiful film to look at, and the performances by McDormand and Adams are great, but the film itself doesn't hold up that well to scrutiny.

Review: Enchanted

Only Disney could send up it’s own animated films and their tropes without making it seem malicious, and Amy Adams is one of the few actresses who could pull off the role of the displaced would-be-princess of the animated land of Andalasia. She’s sweet without being saccharine, she’s a romantic without seeming foolish, and she’s so effortlessly charming that you can’t help but feeling, well, enchanted.

The key to Adams’ performance is her commitment to the limits of the character. If she played the role while seeming to wink at the audience as if to say, “Can you believe this?” it simply wouldn’t work. Instead she plays the character as someone who only knows life inside the fairytale universe (the whole of the fairytale universe, it seems, given that she’s familiar with the seven dwarves and the story of Little Red Riding Hood, albeit not the version that the rest of us are familiar with) and finds the real world as unbelievable as a real person would find a fairytale land were they transported to it. Her character doesn’t stay this way, she grows and changes as the film progresses, and Adams’ signals these changes in subtle and believable ways. She is very good in this role and is being justly praised, but attention should also be paid to James Marsden, who plays her fairytale Prince and brings many of the same qualities to his role as Adams’ does to hers.

The film references many of the classic Disney films, most notably Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Susan Sarandon is cast as the evil Queen who sends her would-be successor into the real world, and she seems to have a lot of fun playing the Queen in both her regal form and in disguise as an old crone to tempt the princess with an apple. She also appears later as a dragon, in reference to Sleeping Beauty. Idina Menzel, who has a basically thankless role as the girlfriend of Patrick Dempsey’s character, at least gets to have the Cinderella/glass slipper moment at the end. The songs in the film also serve as references to the older films: “Happy Working Song” is a riff on “Whistle While You Work,” and “That’s How You Know” reminded me at least of “Kiss The Girl” from The Little Mermaid.

All in all, this is a good, entertaining film with a nice twist on tradition in that at the end it’s the girl who saves the boy from the monster instead of the other way around. It isn’t a movie that’s going to change your life, but it’s a nice way to spend a couple of hours.